A longtime investigative journalist, he wrote books and articles that documented a campaign of disinformation intended to sow doubt about global warming.
Ross Gelbspan, an investigative journalist whose reporting on climate change exposed a campaign of disinformation by oil and gas lobbyists to sow doubt about global warming — a denialism that was embraced by Republican officials and, in some cases, by a credulous news media — died on Jan. 27 at his home in Boston. He was 84.
The cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his wife, Anne Gelbspan, said.
Mr. Gelbspan’s career included reporting on dissidents in the Soviet Union and on F.B.I. harassment of domestic critics, and his interest in the climate crisis, like those other subjects, came from a sense of outrage that powerful interests were suppressing information needed for democracy.
We still use disinformation when, given the seriousness, we should be calling them what they are, lies.